Presently, it is normal construction practice to either erect the walls of stairwells, install landing platforms as the walls go up and then construct the stairs after the walls have been completed or to construct complete sections of stairs at some remote location, transport them to the job site and building the walls of the stairwells around the completed stacked sections.
The former practice has the serious disadvantage that extensive temporary scaffolding has to be erected together with safety rails and ladders for the construction workers. Each run of stairs is, thus, a custom job adding greatly to the cost of the stairs. In the latter practice, the prefabricated stair sections require extensive metal bracing to support the stairs until the walls are formed therearound. After the walls are completed, the bracing is permitted to remain in the walls of the staircase. This bracing constitutes a substantial and unnecessary waste in that the ultimate support for the finished stairs results not from the bracing but from the connection of the stairs to the walls of the stairwell. Further, the bracing is normally located at the outer extremities of the sections which masonry workers find interferes with the construction of the stairwells. In addition, the prefabricated stair sections are rather unwieldy structures which are difficult to transport economically and align properly in stacked relationship to each other.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a unique stairs for multi-floored buildings and its method of construction and erection which has definite advantages over former stairs and their construction methods while doing away with their disadvantages.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a stairs and method of constructing same comprising elements which can be easily assembled on the job site after they are prefabricated on the job site or at a remote location.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a stairs and method of constructing same wherein the stairs are constructed prior to erection of the walls of a stairwell and the supports for the stairs are contained within the extremities of the stairs and are removed for reuse after the stairs are secured to the stairwell walls.
It is yet a further object to provide a stairs and method of constructing same wherein the platform members of preceding sections of stairs serve as a base for mounting the removable supports for additional levels of stairs.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a substantially continuous railing system for multi-floored buildings.
Other objects and advantages will be pointed out in, or be apparent from, the specification and claims, as will obvious modifications of the embodiments shown in the drawings.